Transcript B2B Conference Presentation - Alibaba's Community of Friend's Model

“Communities of Friends”
Alibaba’s Postmodern B2B Signal to the West
Mr. David C. Cockayne, University of Huddersfield Business School
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Research Inspiration...
Aim and Structure
Aim:
Conceptual Paper – Present idea based on
postmodern approach to B2B marketing for
further research and investigation
• B2B Marketing – From transactions to the ‘modern’
network
• Alibaba’s “community of friends”
• Postmodern turn for B2B?
• Impact for the development of B2B marketing?
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B2B Marketing – From Transactions, to
the ‘modern’ network
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Transactional Marketing
• Sheth and Parvatiyar (1995) – Pre and Post Industrial Model of
Market development (market-centric)
• Wilkie and Moore (2003) – Marketing perspective; pre-marketing
(before 1990); founding the field (1900-1920); formalising the field
(1920-1950); paradigm shift (1950-1980); and shift intensification
(1980-Present).
• Models differ although centre around a common theme; exchangebased, transactional (economics derived) theory dominated
marketing research until around the 1980’s
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Theory of the firm, and “the Economics man is King”
(Hadjikhani and LaPlaca 2013)
• Low price coupled with acceptable quality deemed acceptable, and
desirable form of economic exchange Market dominated by massmarketing, profit maximisation, trade of capital goods and production
commodities
• Easy to quantify profits, margins and costs – more difficult to
determine ‘quality’ and ‘durability’
• Short-term, exchange focus leads to faster revenue accumulation
rather than longer-term life-cycle costs. Major business bias in
America – led to rejection and ignorance of “irrational, illogical
customer activity”.
Adapted from: (Hadjikhani and LaPlaca 2013); (Sheth and Parvatiyar 1995); (Wilkie and Moore
2003); (LaPlaca 2009)
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Evolution?
• Economic, exchange focus lost grip on knowledge dominance with
the during Wilkie and Moore’s (2003) ‘intensification of the paradigm
shift’
• Customer service, added value (and value propositions), superior
quality, and differentiation based on customer preference in-line with
the newly formed ‘marketing concept’ spilled over into B2B
marketing
• Realisation that economic, transaction focus nurtured ‘marketing
myopia’ (Levitt 1960) – Linked to Henry Ford and Harvey Firestone
(Hadjikhani and LaPlaca 2013).
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The ‘modern’ network
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The transition from economic, transaction focused marketing to a
more network / relationship based model is consistent with the rise
to power of the marketing concept.
By the 1970s the marketing concept had formalized and
consolidated itself at the crux of of modern marketing (Bagozzi,
1975; Kotler, 1972), inspired from the pioneering marketing theories
of Alderson (1957, 1965),
Marketing concept formed around the grand narratives (Lyotard
1984) of modernism. It prescribes the relationship that institutions
are to have with their consumers and other stakeholders (Dholakia
and Firat 2006)
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‘modern’ marketing
• The marketing concept sits not just at the heart of
marketing but now also in modern culture as a whole,
Infusing politics, work relationships, colleagues, and
even the way in which people think about themselves
(Andrusia and Haskins, 2000).
• As such ‘modern’ marketing constitutes a cultural
cornerstone of contemporary modern social existence
(Dholakia and Firat 2006).
• modern marketing’s success cannot be overstated - it is
the principal mode of modern business relationships,
partly because it captures the essence of modern culture
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Postmodern turn for Business to Business Marketing?
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Concepts of postmodernism culture have incited new perspectives
and debates across social sciences (i.e. Featherstone, 1991; Lash,
1990; Cova 1997; Kozinets 2002.
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Technology-driven electronic methods of communicating and
transacting aid and accelerate these ongoing cultural
transformations (Dholakia and Firat 2006).
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Postmodernism calls for the ‘folding-in’ of the past and the future
into the expansive ‘here-and-now present’ – a perspective
encapsulated in Alibaba’s ‘community model’.
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Cova’s ‘linking value’ of
consumption (1997)
• Cova (19977) suggested that marketing lagged behind
societies move from the ‘modern’ to the ‘postmodern’.
• Marketing (and the marketing concept) individualised
consumption – ignoring the community, collaborative
value of consumption
• Ethnosociological analysis revealed the ‘linking value’ of
consumption, creating ‘consumption communities’ where
the true value of consumption was derived from shared
community value rather than simply individualistic
symbolic / functional value combinations.
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Alibaba’s ‘Community of Friends’ –
beyond the ‘modern’ marketing concept?
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A “Community of Friends”
• Originally developed as a means to unite and help develop China’s
plethora of SMEs
• E-Intermediary built around China’s business values of face, and
‘guanxi’
• Substantial Investment (Yahoo) in 2005 saw organisation grow and
expand internationally
• Focus shifted – uniting China’s plethora of SMEs with foreign
business opportunities
• Launch of TaoBao allowed ‘friends’ to chat, share photos, comment,
display status updates and generally ‘become friends’ irrespective of
‘business transactions’ – system originally trialled by Alibaba.
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Conclusions and Further Considerations…
- Postmodern perspective offers an alternative view to the
transaction and relationship models of B2B Marketing
- B2C marketing has arguably started to shift – is B2B
falling behind?
- Can Western B2B marketing potentially learn from this
model?
- Is there scope for further research?
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Questions?
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